18 May 2008

Our Unschooling Family

I do not post much about "unschooling" per se, and yet all of my posts are about unschooling, because unschooling is life. Living life every day and learning all along the way. But once in a while, to keep account of all the fascinating things the kids are learning and doing, as well as to show you what this looks like as we live it out, I feel the urge to share.
This morning the entire family worked together to remove every single thing we own from our kitchen. We have a slight, shall we say, infestation. After months of trying every natural remedy we could find, we decided to tent the sucker off and go for the big guns. This meant that I cooked dinner on the floor in the corner of the living room and avoided my toxin-saturated kitchen. My kids said I looked like a little Indian woman, whatever that means. It appears that the enemy is waving the white flag of surrender, and we hope to move back into the kitchen shortly.
Kendra spent a good part of the day torturing herself over an algebra problem. She is also studying for a Biology final that she has to take on Monday, her last official day of co-op. She has been looking into taking the SAT. The other day she said she wanted to be ready "if" she decided to go to college. (Thanks Stephanie - you were a big part of that IF.)
Kaitlyn has been painting like a crazy woman. No longer having art classes, she seems liberated to paint what she wants. She has been painting a whimsical castle scene that has some reflective water in the foreground. I've been admiring it all day. She has also immersed herself in the study of the zodiac - which has led her unwittingly to learning some math involving degrees of the planets, etc. (Please save the witchcraft comments - we believe the zodiac was set in the stars by our awesome, imaginative, Creator God.)
Kullen has been drawing a lot lately. He took out a couple of art books and did some apple and shadow drawings, worked some on faces, etc. He has also rediscovered the joy of his PSP. Tonight he sat beside me on the porch swing with his hand on my knee and said, "Cool!" and followed it with instructions on straightening and bending my knee this way and that while he felt the joint. He was pretty amazed by that. As Charlotte Mason says, a mother is a child's best plaything.
We are deprogramming Travis who asked me last Saturday on the way to his mother's house if there would be a "slew of people at this shindig". While he swears he was only teasing, we have heard his vernacular deteriorate the longer we are here. Earlier today he informed us that we were watching a television station from "Loo-see-anna". We have all joined the intervention - this is serious business.
Anyway, that is what is going on in our home today. I hope that you are all enjoying living and learning in your neck of the woods.

2 comments:

  1. Whether you attend public school or you home school, living is learning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No negative comments here! But can I ask, what actually IS the zodiac? Is it just constellations? Genuinely interested.

    ReplyDelete

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